ChatGPT o3-mini will be free for all, and I can’t wait to try the powerful new problem-solving model

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• OpenAI’s new reasoning model o3-mini is launching soon
• Sam Altman has now confirmed it will be available to free tier users
• ChatGPT Plus users will get “tons of o3-mini usage”

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OpenAI announced the upcoming rollout of its incredibly smart new reasoning model earlier this week, and now we’ve got even better news: o3-mini will be available for free.

Sam Altman confirmed the news on X yesterday, stating “Big news: the free tier of ChatGPT is going to get o3-mini!” The OpenAI CEO also confirmed that Plus members, those paying $20/£20/$AU30 a month will get “tons of o3-mini usage”, which is great for those who want to take full advantage of the new model.

o3 and o3-mini were unveiled in December as part of OpenAI’s “12 Days of OpenAI” event, which also saw the official release of Sora in the US, OpenAI’s AI video generation tool.

o3-mini is a substantial upgrade to the o1-mini reasoning model released last year, allowing users to get answers to complex scientific and math problems. There’s no exact timeframe on when o3-mini will be available, but Altman confirmed on January 17 that it will launch in API and ChatGPT in “a couple of weeks.”

Once o3-mini does become available (to free, Plus, and Pro users) you’ll be able to get help with questions that require thought and reasoning. In the new model you’ll even be able to adjust the thinking time to give the AI model more time to work out an answer. There will be a “low compute” option for quick responses and a “high compute” option for tasks that require extra thinking power.

o3-mini is free for all

When OpenAI announced the new model in December, my first thought was “how long will we have to wait to try this for free?” Luckily, Altman and co has given free users a nice surprise to kick off 2025 with this announcement that o3-mini will in fact be free.

We don’t have any more info on how many prompts you’ll be able to ask o3-mini for free, but hopefully there’s a decent amount of free usage so that everyone can take advantage of the future of AI reasoning models.

o3-mini hits the perfect sweet spot between a reasoning model and a more general usage model, and OpenAI hopes this new middle ground will break through into the mainstream and become a daily tool for the average consumer. As soon as we get access to o3-mini we’ll be putting it through its paces, so stay tuned to TechRadar for all the upcoming ChatGPT o3-mini news.

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